The Frog Earl
Page 16
His imagination removed him in spirit from the drawing room of Salters Hall. When he returned to the present, Mimi had disappeared.
Harriet, already taking to the floor partnered by Mr. Blake, shot Simon a look of desperate appeal. He nodded and slipped out of the room into the entrance hall. Not a sign of her. Recalling the double doors opening from the drawing room into the dining room, he wondered, hopefully, if she might have gone to check on the supper arrangements.
The butler emerged from the dining room as Simon approached.
“Is Miss Lassiter in there, Waring?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
Jacko adored Mimi, Simon thought; Cook allowed her to keep tadpoles in a casserole in the scullery; Baird hunted out his late master's effects for her amusement and had shielded her charms from the view of the picnickers. Was it possible that this superior manservant had an equally soft spot for his mistress?
He had to risk it. “I may be making a cake of myself,” he said, “but I'm going to ask you to do something for Miss Mimi. I want you to prevent her from entering the drawing room through the dining room, whether you stand out here in the hall or by the double doors.”
“Sir?” Waring was understandably startled.
“I'll be waiting outside the drawing-room door,” Simon plowed on, feeling an utter mooncalf, “and I can't see how she could slip by me, but she might. Please, for her sake, keep guard with me.”
The butler gave him a level stare, then nodded slowly. “Miss Mimi's inclined to be a trifle impetuous,” he acknowledged. “I wouldn't want her to come to harm—nor I don't want to know what's afoot, sir,” he added hastily, holding up his hand. “Keep her out of the drawing room, you say?”
“Until I've spoken to her.”
“Right, sir. I could have a footman watch the other door and fetch you if she comes.”
“Good gad, no! I trust your discretion, Waring, but the fewer people know anything about this the better. If I'm right, that is.”
“Well, here's hoping you're not, sir,” said the butler and he padded back into the dining room.
Simon stood by the drawing room door, a slab of solid Tudor oak that let pass only the faintest sounds of harpsichord, dancing feet, and conversation. A branch of candles stood on a heavy Jacobean table on the far side of the whitewashed hall, barely illuminating the high, open-beamed ceiling. To one side of the table was the door to the library and next to it the door to the ladies' sitting room.
Mimi could be innocently occupied in either room, but it seemed unlikely. Waring would surely have known if she had gone down the passage beside the staircase to consult Cook about supper. Simon glanced doubtfully at the front door. It was a damp evening—why should she go outside?
No, she must be upstairs. He could think of reasonable explanations, but by now he was almost sure Harriet was right.
A rustle from the top of the stairs alerted him. Mimi stood there, her hand on the newel post. Her face was in shadow, but the rest of her was all too visible.
She was wearing a brief band of silk covering her bosom, and a filmy skirt hung to her ankles from a narrow strip of silk about her hips. A number of gauzy scarves draped her figure, but in the light of the branch of candles on the landing behind her, they were all entirely transparent.
Simon bounded up the stairs. She backed away as he came to a halt just below the top.
“Oh no, Princess,” he said. “Oh no.” It had been difficult to resist her charms when they were both wet, cold, and shivering after swimming in the mere. It was damnably difficult now, when she stood warmly desirable not an arm's length away, her slender waist, the gentle swell of her hips, the smooth line of her thighs all exposed to his view. Could her skin possibly be as soft as it looked?
Simon blinked and shook his head. He did his best to make his voice express nothing but sternness. “Go and change at once. I shall be waiting below.” He turned and stumped down the stairs.
When he reached the hall he looked back. She was gone. Releasing Waring from his post, he resumed his by the drawing-room door.
Mimi came down a few minutes later, once more a respectably clad goddess of the southern seas—a subdued goddess who avoided meeting his eyes.
“It really wouldn't have done, Princess,” he said softly, opening the door for her. She nodded, still not looking at him, and went past him into the room.
To Simon, Harriet's heartfelt gratitude was no compensation for losing Mimi's confidence.
Chapter 17
The tadpoles had well-developed rear legs by now, and the buds of their front legs were showing. Changing their water with Jacko's assistance, Mimi wondered whether Simon would ever come to help her again.
He had looked so stern last night, no hint of laughter in his eyes, no warmth in his peremptory voice. And for the rest of the evening his grave expression had kept her at a distance. How could she have guessed that for once she ought to have heeded Harriet's remonstrances? Simon hadn't cared when she went hatless and gloveless, when she wore a sari and sat on the floor to play the sitar, when she played cricket. English customs were impossible to fathom!
“They'll be wanting a shallower dish soon, miss,” Jacko's voice broke into her thoughts, “wi' a bit o' stone to practice climbing out o' the water a ways.”
“I'll ask Cook,” she said absently. She wanted to be alone to wallow in misery.
“Right, Miss Mimi, and I'll find a nice stone for 'em. 'Tis a fair wonder how they've growed, ain't it?”
She nodded. “Thank you, Jacko. I shan't ride this morning.”
Going up to her chamber, she put on gloves and a bonnet, and a lutestring spencer over her cambric walking dress, for it was cloudy and there was a cool breeze blowing. Then she added a parasol in case the sun should come out. She would walk down to the pond. If by chance she met anyone who happened to be riding by, he would have to admit that she was dressed with the utmost respectability.
The gardens were full of the scent of roses. Mimi stopped to bury her nose in the heart of a particularly glorious crimson bloom, but even that rich fragrance failed to cheer her. She passed the borders of delphiniums, pinks, lupins, and irises without a second glance.
At the top of the ha-ha steps she paused. From here she could see over the hedges into the meadows on each side of the paddock—not a horseman in sight.
Disconsolate, she started down the steps. An eager whine from below made her glance down. A small dog, black, white and tan, was limping toward the foot of the steps, looking up with such hope in its melting brown eyes that she laughed and hurried.
“What, then, have you a thorn in your paw?” she asked.
She sat down on the next-to-bottom step and held out her hand. The dog—he was no more than a puppy, she saw—hesitated a few feet away.
“Come on,” Mimi urged, taking off her gloves. “Let me see it. You look like the Pells' foxhounds. Have you run away?”
The bedraggled creature crawled toward her, the very tip of his tail twitching tentatively. As he sniffed at her shoe and then her hand, she noted a cut on his head just above one eye. He was dreadfully thin, his ribs showing through the matted coat.
“You poor little thing. I'll call you Rohan. Because that means sandalwood in Hindi,” she explained, wrinkling her nose, “and a bath in sandalwood certainly would not come amiss.” She stroked the soft puppy-fur on top of his head and he rolled onto his back, presenting his stomach for petting.
Mimi was horrified. A raw gash cut across the thin flank nearest her, and when she touched Rohan's rib cage he yelped in pain, struggling to his feet. With a humble, apologetic look, he licked her hand and held up his sore paw.
A careful inspection of the muddy limb revealed no thorn in the pads, no obvious injury.
“The Pells must be worrying about you,” she told him, recalling the squire's proud description of his best bitch's litter. “They will know how to take care of you. The sooner we get you home the better.”
Carr
ying Rohan, she set off across the fields. She had never been to the Pells' house since there was no lady in the household, but she knew the way. It was not much more than a mile off. The puppy seemed to put on weight as she walked, and the stiles were difficult to climb until she decided to put him down to creep underneath, which had the added benefit of resting her tired arms.
The last stile faced across a lane to a pair of sagging, rusted gates. Rohan clasped to her chest, Mimi crossed the lane and started up the Pells' narrow drive.
The gravel was pitted with yellowish puddles. On either side, unpruned laurel bushes strangled in a mass of ivy that reached out waving tendrils as she passed. Emerging unscathed, except for one wet shoe and a muddy hem, she paused to look across what must once have been a lawn at a house so buried in ivy she couldn't guess whether it was built of brick or stone.
“Ugh,” she said to Rohan and he licked her chin.
As soon as her feet stopped crunching on the gravel, she heard the distant sound of barking dogs. The drive branched just ahead. The right fork probably led to the kennels, she decided, and turned in that direction. After a few feet the gravel petered out, exposing a veritable mire. She took to the verge, which was at least clean though the long grass was damp. Soon she was wet to the knees.
The dog sounds grew louder. Rohan began to whine as they went round a curve, past screening bushes. A series of fenced enclosures and sheds lay before them, aswarm with yapping, yelping foxhounds.
Mimi had grown quite used to Rohan's smell but the stink of the kennels assaulted her nostrils. Involuntarily, she stepped back.
A large man carrying a bucket was just latching the gate of one of the runs. He wore a low-crowned hat with a narrow brim, a leather jerkin over a grimy shirt, leather breeches and high boots. Mimi didn't much like the look of him, but he would surely know how to take care of Rohan's injuries.
“I've brought one of your puppies back,” she announced. “He's hurt.”
The kennelman swung round. “Eh, missy, you did startle me. One o' my pups, you say? Ain't none missing as I knows of. Lessee.” He came closer. “Nay, that's our Juno's runt. Won't never make good, that 'un.”
“But he's injured. At least you could take care of him till he has healed.”
He guffawed. “Bless your tender heart, missy, us had to throw stones at un to drive un off. Ain't nowt to be done wi' the runt o' the litter. Gi' un here,” he grunted, reaching out a filthy hand. “I'll drown un this time.”
In his frantic scramble to escape, Rohan knocked off Mimi's bonnet before she managed to pin him against her shoulder. Hanging by the ribbons, it dangled down her back.
The man grasped the pup by the loose skin on his shoulders.
“Let go at once!” Mimi ordered.
“Nay, missy, un's no good to man nor beast.”
“Let go! How dare you!” She hit his arm with her parasol.
He twisted the parasol from her grasp and broke it across his knee, then stood glaring down at her grimly, hands on hips. “I don't take kindly to females as interferes,” he growled. “What Squire does wi' his dogs ain't none o' your affair.”
“A hurt animal should be everyone's affair,” she berated him, backing away as he reached out again. “I hope you come back as a dog in your next incarnation, a dog with a master as cruel as you are. Or better still, a rat.”
“Who you calling a rat!” His reaching hand turned into a fist.
* * * *
“Gerald! What the devil are you doing here?” Simon demanded as his cousin entered the breakfast parlor.
“My dear fellow, you saw me last night when you returned from tripping the light fantastic at Salters Hall. Coffee, please, Baird, and I shall help myself.” He went to the loaded sideboard and peered under silver covers.
“I know you're back from Crossfields, but I own myself astonished to see you at this hour in the morning. Never say you're growing accustomed to country hours at last.”
Grinning, Gerald helped himself to kidneys, bacon, and toasted muffins and joined Simon at the table. “I fear I am about to shock you, coz. If you have no definite engagement to Wickham, I shall ride out with you. It is past time you saw the damage a careless landlord can do.”
“Squire Pell? Wickham inveighs against him but he won't take me to see for myself. He says it's unwise to trespass on the squire's land.”
Baird, returning with a pot of hot coffee, snorted. “The squire's been known to transport trespassers,” he observed. “Sir Josiah, now, was respected for his fairness as justice of the peace. He never made an example of someone he had a personal grudge against.”
“I am sure Uncle Josiah was an exemplary magistrate,” said Gerald, “but I hardly think even Pell would go so far as to transport my bailiff and Lord Derwent, even in his present guise.”
“More like to take a potshot at them,” muttered the old man.
“Possibly. Thank you, Baird, that will be all. What I propose, Simon, is to call at the house after riding across his fields. He can hardly take offense because we came in the back way.”
“I wager his lordship, Viscount Litton of Crossfields, may approach from any direction he pleases,” Simon agreed. “Hurry up with those kidneys, coz, I'm ready to go.”
An hour later they were riding down a lane between a farm belonging to Mere House and one of the Pells' tenants. Gerald pointed out the weed-choked ditches on the squire's side, the gaps in the hedge where bushes and trees had died and not been replaced. Coming to a rickety gate, they turned into a plowed field.
“Winter wheat,” said Simon, judging the crop by its near readiness for harvest. “But why is it only planted down the sides of the field, except for those few clumps in the middle?”
“You used to ride to hounds before you took to chasing Frenchies across the waves.”
“You mean the hunt crossed here? I suppose a few dozen galloping horses at the wrong time could cause such devastation, but I'm surprised it hasn't been replanted.”
“Replanting costs money. Pell may have paid compensation, but either it was insufficient or his overseer pocketed some portion of it.”
They rode on, across soggy, undrained meadows grazed by cattle mired to their knees; through woodland where dead trees rotted in the underbrush; past a farmhouse with cracked windows and tottering chimney, and unsmiling, unshod children in the littered yard.
“Can nothing be done?” Simon asked, appalled.
“They are Pell's acres and Pell's tenants. I know Uncle Josiah tried to reason with him without success. It would cost a fortune now to put all to rights.”
“Mimi's fortune.”
“I doubt it would be spent that way if Albert could get his hands on it, which I also doubt. The colonel is aware of the state of the squire's land.”
“I hope he's seen it for himself. I'd heard enough stories, but without actually setting eyes on it I couldn't really imagine it. Gerald, I'm going to insist that my father let me manage our estates. I cannot bear to think that our tenants might be living in such conditions.”
“Nothing as bad as this, I believe. Your agents are too well paid to risk their positions by gross negligence or dishonesty. But nothing is done quite as well as it could be.”
“What I don't understand is why the devil didn't Cedric make more effort to take over the reins. Was he unaware of the problems? You must have pointed them out to him.”
“I did, on more than one occasion.”
“Surely he wasn't afraid of losing my father's regard? I don't believe anything he could have done would have damned him in the marquis's eyes.”
Instead of answering, Gerald drew rein and gestured at the house that now stood before them. Absorbed in their discussion, Simon hadn't noticed the ivy-clad manor, merging as it did into the overgrown shrubbery surrounding it. Windows peered like eyes beneath shaggy brows, and the terrace sported a beard of grass.
“The devil!” said Simon. “The Pells live no better than their tenants.”
“What is there to know, other than that he was a buck of the first stare, a model of fashionable elegance, a superb sportsman, the handsome darling of the ton, in short perfection itself? Everything a gentleman could want in his son and heir.” Simon tried, without a great deal of success, to keep the bitterness from his voice.
“He was also a libertine who cared not whom he cuckolded, nor what innocence he destroyed,” said Gerald brutally. “He was a gamester who would have bankrupted the family but for the luck that enabled him to ruin several others instead. He never lost his welcome in polite society, but he preferred to frequent the coarsest scoundrels and he died in a drunken brawl in a low tavern.”
“But... but why...” Simon stammered. He read honesty in his cousin's eyes, and loyalty and—was it confident hope? “I was told Cedric was killed in a carriage accident.”
Gerald set his horse in motion and Simon automatically followed suit. “Your parents are still trying to pretend it never happened. They prefer the myth of perfection to the truth, and against that myth you can never win. To my mind, you are worth a dozen of your brother, and I am proud... What the devil!”
Even Simon's preoccupation vanished at the sight that met their eyes as they rounded a stand of elms. A man in the clothes of an outdoor servant advanced with upraised fist on a slim figure who faced him defiantly, shielding something in her arms.
“Mimi!” cried Simon, urging Intrepid to a gallop, Gerald's mount matching every stride.
As the two horses thundered down upon him, the fellow backed off, then turned tail and ran. Mimi stood her ground until she recognized them. At once she set her burden on the ground and began to struggle with her bonnet, hanging down her back.
Intrepid slowed and stopped. Simon dismounted and went to help with the recalcitrant bonnet.
“The brim is torn,” he told her, straightening it, “and I fear one of the roses will never be the same again. You're hard on hats, Miss Lassiter.”